President Donald Trump said on Thursday he wants to ensure the U.S. nuclear arsenal is at the “top of the pack,” saying the United States has fallen behind in its weapons capacity. Russia has 7,000 warheads and the United States, 6,800, according to the Ploughshares Fund, an anti-nuclear group. “Russia and the United States have far more weapons than is necessary to deter nuclear attack by the other or by another nuclear-armed country,’ he said. The treaty permits both countries to have no more than 800 deployed and non-deployed land-based intercontinental and submarine-launched ballistic missile launchers and heavy bombers equipped to carry nuclear weapons, and contains equal limits on other nuclear weapons. Analysts have questioned whether Trump wants to abrogate New START or would begin deploying other warheads.

Source: Huffington Post February 23, 2017 20:39 UTC